Tennis Betting Advice - July 2023
Wimbledon Day 2: Russian outsider at 200/1...
Tuesday 4th July 2023
Welcome to your Wimbledon 2023 Daily Service - Day 2…
Good morning. Day 1 saw us treading water…
In the Outright book, 75/1 outsider Liudmila Samsonova lost in the 1st round in two tie-break sets, 7-6, 7-6. But that result was made less galling by the fact that Monday’s Match Winner pick Diane Parry beat Harriet Dart at odds of 2/1+ (3.0+). The French youngster lost a tiebreaker herself before coming back to beat the Brit, 6-7, 6-0, 6-4.
Fading light stopped play with our 50/1 man Taylor Fritz 3-2 ahead on serve in a fifth & final set against Yannick Hanfmann. That match is scheduled back on court for completion this afternoon, second up on No.3 Court - although the weather forecast is rainy today, and we could see plenty of ‘roof talk’ from the BBC pundits…
Centre Court and No.1 Court have retractable roofs. Meaning at least the six scheduled matches in those stadiums will go ahead as planned today. That includes our other 50/1 pre-tournament men’s pick, Andy Murray. The two-time Wimbledon champion takes on fellow Brit, Ryan Peniston. With 128 career grass-court match wins to his name, Andy leads the field as the active men’s player with the most grass victories. Odds-on tournament favourite and defending champ Novak Djokovic sits on 121.
We also get a first look at our two early-bird women’s picks today, weather permitting of course… with 66/1 Karolina Muchova (now 25/1 at best, Unibet & Boylesports), and 25/1 Petra Kvitova (now 12/1, and 16/1 Boylesports), both in action.
The case for a 100/1 winner…
The bottom half of the women’s draw plays today. With world no.1, recent French Open winner and Wimbledon market leader Iga Swiatek in the opposite side and starting with a comfortable 6-1, 6-3 win yesterday. Today’s half of the sheet contains the other two members of the recently established women’s Big Three: defending champion Elena Rybakina, and this year’s Australian Open winner Aryna Sabalenka…
Rybakina pulled out of Roland Garros with a viral illness, and only played two matches on grass in the Wimbledon run-up in June. Elena says she is ready to go this week, though. Sabalenka returns to SW19 for the first time since her semi-final run in 2021; the Belarusian being one of the players hit with the Wimbledon ban last summer.
The bookies have those two - ranked no.3 and no.2 in the world respectively - as general 5/1 shots each for the title. Here at Ones to Watch we prefer to play at much, much bigger prices. And go on the hunt for the next breakout player to emerge from the chasing pack…
This time 12 months ago, Rybakina was 100/1 to win Wimbledon. Of course, we can’t expect a turn-up-for-the-books like that every time (!). But the past 11 women’s Grand Slams have produced no fewer than eight 100/1+ finalists. With four of them going on to lift the trophy outright: Iga Swiatek (French Open 2020), Barbora Krejcikova (French Open 2021), Emma Raducanu (US Open 2021), and Rybakina (Wimbledon 2022).
Along with 5/1 favourites Rybakina and Sabalenka, this bottom half of the Wimbledon 2023 draw also includes last year’s beaten finalist, Ons Jabeur. We were on the Tunisian ‘Minister for Happiness’ as a 40/1 early pick in April last year. Ons went off at 10/1. And this time the 28-year-old world no.6 is a 16/1 chance.
Jabeur holds the 70%+ career grass match win-rate that we value so much (76.25% to be precise). But last summer’s Grand Slam final defeats at Wimbledon and then the US Open look to have taken their toll, mentally. Ons says all the right things about learning from those losses, and being more motivated than ever to achieve her dream of winning a Major. But declaring that she is here to win Wimbledon may ultimately have a negative impact in the pressure stakes, when it comes to the crunch.
I may well be wrong, and I’ll be happy for Jabeur if she does lift the Venus Rosewater Dish a week on Sunday. But I won’t be backing her today at 16/1.
From the Girls’ to the Ladies’...
Two of the last eight Wimbledon Ladies’ finals have featured players who had previously won the Wimbledon Girls’ title…
As we’ve discussed before, being a highly-rated Junior does not guarantee a glittering Senior Pro career or a one-way ticket to the top. But in 2014, Eugenie Bouchard reached the Wimbledon final as a 50/1 shot, two years after winning the Girls’ title. And in 2021, Ashleigh Barty triumphed at the All England Club, 10 years after showing her potential on the grass by winning the 2011 Girls’ event.
Looking at the current crop, names in the 2023 women’s draw include former Wimbledon Girls’ champions Belinda Bencic (2013), Jelena Ostapenko (2014), Anastasia Potapova (2016), and Iga Swiatek (2018)...
In the top half of the draw, Swiatek and Bencic are seeded to meet in the 4th round. After both winning their 1st-round matches in straight sets yesterday, Iga is 2/1 for the trophy, with Belinda 80/1 in general and 100/1 with Betfred.
In the bottom half of the draw - which is where our eyes land today - Ostapenko is in the 3rd Quarter of the field, and Potapova is in the 4th Quarter…
Ostapenko won WTA Birmingham in the build-up to Wimbledon last month. The 26-year-old Latvian is a former 100/1 Grand Slam winner herself (French Open 2017). And Jelena boasts the 70% career grass win-rate stat that we like, with an overall turf record of: won 47 lost 20. Her Wimbledon track record includes a semi-final appearance in 2018, and a quarter-final run in 2017. All’s good on that front. But odds of 33/1 at best (Betfred) and 25/1 & 20/1 in general are no bigger than I was expecting. And Ostapenko always carries the ‘unpredictable’ and even volatile element to her, making the hard-hitting character hard to trust on any given day…
Russian outsider at 200/1…
As with Jabeur, I may live to regret leaving Ostapenko off the bet-list. But Ones to Watch has always been driven by finding the next new name to break through at a big price. Indeed, we flagged-up Ostapenko in her 100/1 French Open year in 2017. And here and now for 2023, Anastasia Potapova is a former Wimbledon Girls’ champion that I like as a big-price underdog for a potential headline-making run at the real thing…
We’ve followed Potapova for a while now. Including backing the young Russian at 18/1 for WTA Lyon in February, where she reached the quarter finals. Anastasia then went on to win her second WTA title in her very next tournament, lifting the trophy in Linz as a 20/1 shot.
Since then, the 22-year-old has continued to make steady progress, threatening to really strike big at a prestigious tournament…
The current world no.23, Potapova made the Miami Open quarter finals in March, having gone off as a rank outsider at odds of 200/1 and 100/1.
We then backed the feisty youngster a couple of times on clay this spring, including at 66/1 in Stuttgart, where Anastasia made the semi finals for us.
The powerful right-hander also made the semis on grass at Birmingham last month, edged out in a three-set scrap by the aforementioned Ostapenko. She’s getting closer…
At odds of 200/1 and 100/1 here at Wimbledon, let’s get Potapova in the book as a big-price youngster with the potential to step up and spring a surprise.
Let’s also take odds of 25/1+ for Potapova to Win the 4th Quarter. A bet that pays out if our player reaches the semi finals…
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Ones to Watch picks - Wimbledon:
Women’s Outright Winner:
Women’s 4th Quarter Winner:
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Play starts at 11am.
I’ll be back at 8am Wednesday with your Wimbledon Day 3 email.
P.S
Want to get in touch? Email me at: oliver.upstone@oxonpress.co.uk
Enjoy the tennis…
Best wishes,
Oliver Upstone